Tag: Fake News

In The Age Of The “Idiotarian”

The 2018 Mid-Terms are just days away and the nation is focused on the election…..the media is drumming their particular political lean on its viewers and the country keeps sliding into the abyss of tribalism.

It has been a long time coming…..the way that Repubs have divided this country along tribal lines…..and yes I blame the GOP and their hit man Newt…..he started this country’s citizens along this avenue of self-destruction.

The truth is division has always been with us…..

Hate, blame, greed, bigotry and fear have always been part of our politics.  If you doubt that, consider these statements from our second Presidential campaign in 1800, which pitted Adams against Jefferson for the second time.

Jefferson’s camp accused President Adams of having a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”

In return, Adams’ men called Vice President Jefferson “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”

As the slurs piled on, Adams was labeled a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant, while Jefferson was branded a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward. Even Martha Washington succumbed to the propaganda, telling a clergyman that Jefferson was “one of the most detestable of mankind.”

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/11/02/haters-and-partisans-have-always-been-us-different

First it was appearance of the “Ignorati”…..a person or group that is willfully ignorant, or woefully uninformed and forces their ignorant view on others regardless of fact.

This was fed by sites, thanx to social media, like Infowars and then fed by FOX News as a willing culprit to the misinformation (call it what it is Fake News)…..

As the “Ignorati” gained in prominence a new political ideology came into being…..the “Idiotarian”……political views are replaced by ignorant  name calling in absence of any real evidence based argument.

The GOP because of its silence on the antics of Our Dear Leader is becoming the party of the “Idiotarian”….now let a true conserv. ex-Congressman, Joe Scarborough explain the death of the GOP to the “Idiotarians”……

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough is blasting the Republican Party over its support of President Trump, calling the GOP “a dying party I can no longer defend.”

Scarborough, a former GOP lawmaker from Florida who announced last week that he is leaving the party, said in a Washington Post op-ed published late Sunday that Republicans who are working with Trump are “making the majority of Americans regret” voting for the party.

“The political movement that once stood athwart history resisting bloated government and military adventurism has been reduced to an amalgam of talk-radio resentments,” Scarborough wrote. “President Trump’s Republicans have devolved into a party without a cause, dominated by a leader hopelessly ill-informed about the basics of conservatism, U.S. history and the Constitution.”

http://thehill.com/media/342296-scarborough-i-left-the-gop-because-trump-is-destroying-the-republican-party

As an old radical I can say that I would be happy to see the destruction of the GOP….but the truth is that would leave the Dems and they are not much better than the GOP…….for there is NO republic without political discourse and as it is now that is sadly missing….and destruction could be eminent if we do not pay attention.

By the way, this election will change little….the dramatics and theatrics will increase but the actual governing process will be lacking.

So I Have written!

Turn The Page!

Fake News, Racism And Bombs

We have less than a week before a historic mid-term election and we have experienced bombs, mass shootings, etc and what brings this on?

There are a couple of articles that touches on these subjects a bit……like it or not…this is Trump’s America…..

Donald Trump, the American president, has fomented violence against liberal opponents and critics who disagree with his policies, and so-called “fake news” media organisations he regards as the “enemy of the people.”

With pipe bombs mailed to some of the political targets he has singled out for retribution – several high-profile Democratic Party politicians, including two former US presidents, a liberal billionaire philanthropist and a major news organisation – Trump is the most prominent inciter of violence and facilitator of right-wing American domestic terrorism.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/fake-news-racism-bombs-fear-loathing-trump-america-181025082812562.html

These right winger extremists are stalking America…..and the rhetoric from the White House is not helping…..

Four of the Saturday worshippers brutally murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue had been old enough during the Holocaust and the second world war to revere America as a safe haven in a world of hate. The other seven victims, the youngest of whom was 54, had grown up in a land where most blatant antisemitism had seemingly retreated to the shadows.

When pipe bombs were mailed to a dozen targets of Donald Trump’s wrath, the only frail consolation had been that no one had been injured. Now with the worst incident of antisemitic violence in American history all comfort has vanished.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/29/rightwing-terror-stalks-america-pittsburgh

I read an excellent question after the weekend of death …….

If there is one thing the massacre at a Jewish synagogue, the pipe bombs mailed to leading Democratic party figures, and the racist violence that claimed the lives of two African-Americans in a Louisville Kroger store last week show, it’s that far-right and racist extremism are serious threats in the United States. Though law enforcement took swift action towards investigating and prosecuting those accused of carrying out these attacks, it is not clear the US federal government is taking this threat as seriously as it should.

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US has devoted enormous energy and resources towards countering threats posed by those accused of affiliation with extremists associating themselves with Islam both in the US and abroad. When US officials seek greater surveillance authority, they also frequently do so by emphasizing threats they say are posed by Muslims.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/10/29/us-treating-far-right-threat-seriously-enough

Personally, the events in the past 2 years is not the United States that I pledged to protect from all enemies foreign and domestic….and anyone that is not disgusted by the events then they are not the “patriot” they pretend to be.

But that is my opinion…..those articles are not mine and reflect the opinions of the authors…if you disagree do not tear into me contact the people in person…if you have the spine.

Further Reading:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-fascist-threat-our-political-establishment-wont-acknowledge/

Closing Thought–25Oct18

We have heard all the what use to be the GOP rail against the MSM as fake news…..just to remind my readers of my coverage…..https://lobotero.com/2017/06/28/all-this-fake-news/

I recently read a story that made me think of Germany of the 1920 and 30’s….Goebbels was a genus at “fake news”……like I said I read a story that made me think of ‘Heil’……

But he took his media antagonism a step further on Wednesday, wondering aloud via tweet whether the F.C.C. should revoke broadcaster NBC’s licenses, after the network published a story saying he had sought a tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. “Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a ‘tenfold’ increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC=CNN,” he said in a tweet. “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!” According to the White House press pool, Trump later said on Wednesday: “It is frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/10/trump-threatens-to-pull-nbc-off-the-air-over-scathing-story

Trump, Our Dear Supreme Leader, continues to show his ignorance of how government works….and to fail to realize that laws are not made for his benefit.

Once again this person thinks that all laws are to protect him and his presidency….

The Media Did It!

Closing Thought–03Aug18

Our Dear Leader has said on numerous occasions that the MSM is the only purveyor of “fake news”….and the Penn rally was NO different……

“Whatever happened to the free press? Whatever happened to honest reporting?” Trump asked, pointing to the media in the back of the room. “They don’t report it. They only make up stories.” Time and time again, Trump denounced the press for underselling his accomplishments and doubting his political rise. He began his rally speech with a 10-minute remembrance of his 2016 election night victory, bemoaning that Pennsylvania wasn’t the state to clinch the White House for him only because “the fake news refused to call it.” “Only negative stories from the fakers back there,” the president declared. With each denunciation, the crowd jeered and screamed at the press in the holding pen.

I do not agree but I will say that they do have a tendency to try and control the conversation.

For instance the latest mash up of whether the president will meet with Mueller and answer questions……they keep teasing us with maybe he will if conditions are right…..truth is Dear Leader will never meet with Mueller because even Trump is not stupid enough to go into a legal situation and lie under oath.

Why do I say that?  Trump cannot go a day with multiple lies on Twitter or in one of his campaign rallies….I mean 4229 lies in 558 days in office…….does anyone think Trump is crazy enough to lead his own demise?

He, Dear Leader, is right about one thing……collusion is not a crime but conspiracy and obstruction are….I mean death is not a crime but murder certainly is…..

And then his legal team with the help from Newt keep talking about the perjury trap being set up by Mueller to entrap the president…..let me help out…..he can beat this trap being set up….how?  By telling the truth and the whole truth…..and there is the rub……a person who cannot tell the truth.

Keep an eye on the MSM……listen to their stories…..all are nothing more than speculation to drive the cycle not a lot of actual news.

Speculation is not news……

While I do not agree with the MSM on many things…..I refuse to attack the free press but I will criticize them…..maybe something the alt-Right should try it would make them look less foolish than they really are.

Plus these attacks on the media by Dear Leader is the only thing he has going for him…..infantile attacks on people that were mean to him.

I gotta know……Trump said in his Penn speech that Russia is very disappointed that Trump won the election……tell us why that is?  Anybody?

QAnon?

Closing Thought–02Aug18

What the f*ck is this all about?

A few nights ago I watched a Florida rally that was given by Our Dear Leader…..and as usual he gave a litany of his usual points (I would call them high points but they were scraping the bottom of the barrel) and as usual he had something derogatory to say about the news media in attendance…..and the usual response by those in attendance was to yell obscenities and gestures toward those in the press area.

In the low IQ audience I saw several Tees and signs with QAnon….and thought I had missed something…..and apparently I have……

“Q WWG1WGA Trump 2020 Keep America Great! MSM is the enemy,” read the sign spotted by the AP at President Trump’s rally in Tampa on Tuesday night. There are plenty of letters on it, but one stands out: Q. NPR reports that other signs and T-shirts read “QAnon,” a reference to a conspiracy theory that’s picking up steam on the far-right and beginning to garner enough attention that it came up during the White House press briefing Wednesday. What you need to know:

  • There actually is a Q: “Q” began posting to 4Chan in October 2017 and then shifted to “the even more fringe” 8Chan as well, per the Daily Beast. “Q” happens to be a type of high-level government security clearance, which Q claims to have. The “Anon” part is apparently a reference to both the anonymous Q (who uses the plural “we”) and doubles as a reference to Q’s fans: the Anons.
  • The lingo doesn’t stop there: Q is purportedly disseminating top-secret info via “breadcrumbs,” which the Daily Beast characterizes as “part poem, part ransom note”; “bakers” follow the crumbs. “No name” is John McCain, “clowns” are those who try to undermine Q.
  • A breadcrumb: The Beast gives this example, posted in June: “Think SC vote to confirm (coming). / No Name action. / Every dog has its day. / Enjoy the show. / Q”
  • The conspiracy theory: Thanks to that government clearance, Q claims to know about a “worldwide criminal conspiracy,” which NPR reports revolves around Robert Mueller—who, per Q, isn’t investigating Trump’s campaign or the 2016 election at all. Rather, he was put in place by Trump to investigate Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and other Democrats, with some (like Huma Abedin) supposedly being tracked via secret wearable location devices in advance of the coming “storm”: when they’ll all go to prison for crimes Q followers believe could be anything from participating in a pedophile ring to having a secret pact with Vladimir Putin.
  • The conspiracy theory, II: To show how wide-ranging things get, the AP writes, “filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, the Rothschild family, and Satan also make appearances in discussions.” Another element: the belief that JP Morgan was behind the sinking of the Titanic. The Tampa Bay Times cites one Q proponent as saying Trump’s misspellings in his tweets are clues. CNN adds that the fact that Trump used the number “17” on a number of occasions in his speech Tuesday night fired up clue-seeking Anons, who noted Q is the alphabet’s 17th letter.
  • Background on “the storm”: In an October 2017 meeting between Trump and military leaders (who, per QAnon thinking, urged Trump to run for president in order to go after the aforementioned criminals), Trump made reference to “the calm before the storm.”
  • The high-profile follower: Roseanne Barr is an “Anon,” just not an anonymous one: She’s tweeted about QAnon a number of times, including this in late June: “we r the army of truth-wwg1wga.” The “wwg1wga,” stands for “where we go one, we go all.” (Side note from the AP: Valerie Jarrett, the subject of Barr’s now infamous tweet, plays a role in some QAnon theories.)
  • Why QAnon is getting more press this week: The Washington Post says Tuesday’s Tampa event highlighted the fact that QAnon isn’t just relegated to the corners of the internet at this point.
  • The White House response: CNN reports QAnons have been pushing for the press to ask Sarah Sanders about Q, which apparently happened Wednesday. Her reply: “The president condemns and denounces any group that would incite violence against any individual.”

There is more for those interested……..

http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/12/qanon-4chan-the-storm-conspiracy-explained.html

This bullsh*t is getting tiring…….the fact that there are morons (I apologize to verified morons) who cannot differentiate between reality and crap smeared across social media.  But then where would Dear Leader be without the mental midgets that worship the ground he walks on?

Closing Thought–31Jul18

Propaganda is used everyday here in the US and the best place for this stuff to get to the normal American is through the one outlet that they cannot resist…social media.

AS an example I give you the newest meme…..

I’ve been noticing videos going viral the last few days, some with millions of views, about Muslim women bravely fighting to free themselves from oppression in the Middle East. The videos, curiously, are being shared enthusiastically by many Republicans and pro-Israel hawks, who aren’t traditionally the sort of crowd you see rallying to support the civil rights of Muslims. What’s up with that?

Well, you may want to sit down for this shocker, but it turns out that they happen to be women from a nation that the US war machine is currently escalating operations against. They are Iranian.

https://theantimedia.com/war-propaganda-social-media/

A few years back I gave my readers a couple of posts so they could identify propaganda…..

In case you did not take my advice and print them out so they would be a quick reference….I do it again……

https://lobotero.com/2013/01/11/what-is-propaganda/

https://lobotero.com/2014/01/06/propaganda-2-0/

Also there is the ever present “Fake News”….just how can one spot this stuff?

Fake news is nothing new. But bogus stories can reach more people more quickly via social media than what good old-fashioned viral emails could accomplish in years past.

Concern about the phenomenon led Facebook and Google to announce that they’ll crack down on fake news sites, restricting their ability to garner ad revenue. Perhaps that could dissipate the amount of malarkey online, though news consumers themselves are the best defense against the spread of misinformation.

https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/

Americans are starting to believe what they are told and ignore what they see and hear…..perfect illustration of how propaganda is winning over truth and fact.

You have all the tools are your finger tips….if you get sucked into the BS world of propaganda then you have NO one to blame by yourself.

I hate that I have to keep harping on this subject….but apparently that is how Americans learn……repetition until it becomes common knowledge….so allow me to repeat…..(first turn printer on then go to top of page and start over)……

Macedonia And Social Media

I have recently got some from Macedonia following IST (let me know who you are) it pleases me that I get people from all over to help me and my readers up to date on the events that I write about….after all I cannot be everywhere as much as I would like to……

I have been following the debate and the vote on the name thing that has been consuming the news from Macedonia…..https://lobotero.com/2018/06/13/macedonia-whats-in-a-name/

Now that I have the introduction and the lead in to this post….

It appears that American conservatives have been duped with fake news coming out of bots located in Macedonia…..

“This is the news of the millennium!” said the story on WorldPoliticus.com. Citing unnamed FBI sources, it claimed Hillary Clinton will be indicted in 2017 for crimes related to her email scandal.

“Your Prayers Have Been Answered,” declared the headline.

For Trump supporters, that certainly seemed to be the case. They helped the baseless story generate over 140,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook.

Meanwhile, roughly 6,000 miles away in a small town in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, a young man watched as money began trickling into his Google AdSense account.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo

What is most humorous is that as that locate and identify these fake news bots…others pop up and the conservative base has a tendency to believe what they read or hear without checking the info out for accuracy.

Further Reading:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/american-conservatives-fake-news-macedonia-paris-wade-libert

The Art Of The Big Lie

For about two years now we have been dealing with what is fondly termed as “Fake News”….in reality it has been around for centuries and in the past it was called propaganda….but today “Fake News” is used instead for it plays better in the political climate that has festered in the near present…..

Since I do a lot of research I am always finding reports/articles on what we are calling “Fake News” and since it is such a dominant subject these days I try to share these articles with my readers…..and as you would think I ran across another one…..

We live, we’re told, in a post-truth era. The internet has hyped up postmodern relativism, and created a kind of gullible cynicism – “nothing is true, and who cares anyway?” But the thing that exploits this mindset is what the Russians call dezinformatsiya. Disinformation – strategic deceit – isn’t new, of course. It has played a part in the battle that has raged between mass democracy and its enemies since at least the First World War.

Letting ordinary people pick governments depends on shared trust in information, and this is vulnerable to attack – not just by politicians who want to manipulate democracy, but by those on the extremes who want to destroy it. In 1924, the first Labour government faced an election. With four days to go, the Daily Mail published a secret letter in which the leading Bolshevik Grigory Zinoviev heralded the government’s treaties with the Soviets as a way to help recruit British workers for Leninism. Labour’s vote actually went up, but the Liberal share collapsed, and the Conservatives returned to power.

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2018/03/art-big-lie-history-fake-news

This also helps me to teach my readers a little history that they would otherwise not be exposed to in their normal day to day lives.

So I have but one thing left to say……Class Dismissed!

It Spreads Like Peanut Butter

For this post I am talking about what has been called “fake news”….I know, I know so much has been written about ‘fake news’….and anything these days that does not fit in the conversation about Trump is labeled as ‘fake news’….this phenom, ‘fake news’, is not spread by those damn Russians or some bot stashed away in some dusty backroom……no ‘fake news’ is spread because most people are f*cking lazy.

It’s anyone’s guess how influential 13 Reds with a $100,000 Facebook budget for America’s 6.8 billion-dollar election may have been, but perhaps the driver behind fake news is less nefarious than we’ve been led to believe: What if people are just gossiping, lazy, idiots? It appears that may be the case, at least according to a study published today in the journal Science about how fake news spreads on social media.

It turns out that fake news spreads in a similar way to high school gossip. Fictional news not seen anywhere else is like a secret waiting to get out around school. People jump to share it because it appears exclusive and people want to be the first to break the news to their friends. “Novel information is thought to be more valuable than redundant information,” study co-author Sinan Aral, a professor of management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said. “People who spread novel information gain social status because they’re thought to be ‘in the know’ or to have inside information.”

http://theantimedia.org/fake-news-lazy-idiots/

Damn that article hits the nail on the bent head.

The premise that people are lazy is all too accurate….anyone that writes a political blog knows how lazy they truly are….it is easier for them to regurgitate crap than it is to research it to determine if it is garbage or accurate.

This laziness has made the search for truth and accuracy virtually impossible……and in the mean time ‘fake news’ continues and is taking over for true news and is gaining in popularity.

Fake News And World War Two

There has been a bunch of crap these days about so-called “fake news”…..this technique is nothing new….Hell fake news has been used since the dawn of time just it makes a much better slogan these days than in the past……it use to be called “propaganda”…..

But as long as we are talking about fake news let’s talk about its use in World War Two.

And yes it was used extensively but both sides during the war and there was even a time that it was used to get the US to commit to the war in Europe…..

In the spring of 1940, British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill was certain of one thing for his nation caught up in a fight to the death with Nazi Germany: Without American support his nation might not survive. But the vast majority of Americans—better than 80 percent by some polls—opposed joining the fight to stop Hitler. Many were even against sending any munitions, ships or weapons to the United Kingdom at all. To save his country, Churchill had not only to battle the Nazis in Europe, he had to win the war for public opinion among Americans. He knew just the man for the job.

In May 1940, as defeated British forces were being pushed off the European continent at Dunkirk, Churchill dispatched a soft-spoken, forty-three-year-old Canadian multimillionaire entrepreneur to the United States. William Stephenson traveled under false diplomatic passport. MI6—the British secret intelligence service—directed Stephenson to establish himself as a liaison to American intelligence. He went to the White House where the President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, remained deeply concerned about the fate of Great Britain. To Stephenson’s dismay, he learned that the U.S. government had no coordinated central command for spies and counterintelligence. Stephenson would have to create one on London’s behalf in America. Before long, Britain’s lone secret agent in the Americas built a vast clandestine propaganda, counterintelligence, and espionage empire.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-real-007-used-fake-news-to-get-the-us-into-world-war-ii

I love history and I do like to share it with my readers….it is my hope that my readers learn something from these posts…..but then I may be asking for too much.